I’m not sure how many caught that today the press conference he did in which he finally took questions from someone other than The View crew or late night talk show hosts on Benghazi, but I sure as heck did. I’ve emphasized the key words from the relevant part of the transcript (via)

QUESTION: Thank you Mr. President. Senator John McCain, and Senator Lindsey Graham both said today that they want to have Watergate-style hearings on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, and said that if you nominate Susan Rice to be secretary of State, they will do everything in their power to block her nomination. Senator Graham said, he simply doesn’t trust Ambassador Rice after what she said about Benghazi. I’d like your reaction to that? And – and would those threats deter you from making a nomination like that?

OBAMA: Well first of all I’m not going to comment on various nominations that I’ll put forward to fill out my cabinet for the second term. Those are things that are still being discussed. But let me say specifically about Susan Rice, she has done exemplary work. She has represented the United States and our interests in the United Nations with skill, and professionalism, and toughness, and grace. As I’ve said before, she made an appearance at the request of the White House in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her.

OBAMA: If Senator McCain and Senator Graham, and others want to go after somebody? They should go after me. And I’m happy to have that discussion with them. But for them to go after the U.N. ambassador who had nothing to do with Benghazi? And was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received? And to besmirch her reputation is outrageous. And, you know, we’re after an election now.

I think it is important for us to find out exactly what happened in Benghazi and I’m happy to cooperate in any ways that Congress wants. We have provided every bit of information that we have and we will continue to provide information. And we’ve got a full-blown investigation, and all that information will be disgorged to Congress.

And I don’t think there’s any debate in this country that when you have four Americans killed, that’s a problem. And we’ve got to get to the bottom of it and there needs to be accountability. We’ve got to bring those who carried it out to justice. They won’t get any debate from me on that.

But when they go after the U.N. ambassador, apparently because they think she’s an easy target, then they’ve got a problem with me. And should I choose, if I think that she would be the best person to serve America in the capacity at the State Department, then I will nominate her. That’s not a determination that I’ve made yet.

Excuse me, but what a load of utter BULL SH*T!

The political opposition, the American people, and to a certain extent the press have been demanding answers out of this administration on this issue that they have absolutely refused to be clear about. They DELIBERATELY muddied the waters on this from day one. The name of the game almost from zero hour has been to blame an “offensive anti-Islam video”, which our celebrity President and key members of his administration – including Ms Rice and Gen. Petraeus – have done. In fact, it wasn’t until three or four weeks after the murders in Benghazi that they started to drip bits of information out about how they had not taken off the table the possibility that it may have been something other than a “spontaneous reaction” to an “offensive video.” People have PLEADED for more information from this administration, and in turn they have deliberately stonewalled – just like they did on the Fast and Furious issue – until after the election. And even now they still don’t want to be straight up with the American people.

There is really no one in this administration who shouldn’t be called out on their lies on this, and that includes Ms. Rice.

Let’s also clear this little matter up up, Mr. Pretend Alpha Male Obama: McCain and Graham would be after Susan Rice even if her name was John Kerry or any other male you might have in that same position. You acting like she has to hide behind you because she’s a withering flower (“soft target”?? “they should go after me”?? please) incapable of speaking for herself is an affront not only to women everywhere, but also to the important position she holds, whether it is a symbolic one or not. And if you are considering her to perhaps replace Sec. Clinton at the State Dept, it’s even DOUBLY important that we get more answers from her about what she knew and when and who she got the information from. It’s even TRIPLY important that she be allowed to speak for herself and for you NOT to treat her as if she needed to step behind you to ward off Republican attacks. Or do you plan on shielding her through the nomination process as you are now, assuming she ends up being the nominee for State? Is she a woman or a mouse? We certainly don’t need a mouse running the State Dept.

This tactic is, of course, strategic in nature. Obama painting Rice as a “soft target” and repeatedly emphasizing the fact that she is a woman is done by design, a carryover of the phony “war on women” rhetoric we saw in the year prior to the election. What he did was treat her like a husband protects his wife, or a brother stands up for his sister, or a male colleague defends a female colleague against harassment. Basically, he treated her like a victim who needed to be “spoken up for.” Except in this case, Rice is in a situation and position where she can and should speak for herself – even if it is with canned talking points from the administration. Obama reacted the way he did regardless of the fact that Republicans have some of the same questions for her as they do for General Petreaus – yet notice how Obama didn’t use that same “Republicans can go after me” tone when it came to him. He also did this full well knowing that the harshest criticisms from both Graham and McCain – and in fact others, including FEMALE Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) – have been reserved directly for him, because he has not been upfront and honest with the people who he has been elected (twice now) to “lead.”

If you’re a woman and you fell for this faux manly-man garbage, let me know because I’m in line to be the Queen of England one day, but right now I could use the cash and have some lovely crown jewels for sale.

Stryker Corporation has announced that it will close its facility in Orchard Park, New York, eliminating 96 jobs next month. It will also counter the medical device tax in Obamacare by eliminating 5% of their global workforce, an estimated 1,170 positions.

Jon Stryker is heir to the Stryker Corporation, one of the largest medical device and equipment manufacturers in the world. Stryker’s grandfather was the surgeon who invented the mobile hospital bed. The company now sells $8.3 billion worth of hospital beds, artificial joints, medical cameras, and medical software every year.

Stryker, a member of the Forbes 400 list, was one of the top five donors to the Obama campaign. Having donated $2 million to the Priorities USA Action super PAC, Stryker also gave $66,000 in contributions to Obama and the Democrat Party.

(…)

Stryker’s corporation is part of an industry that has been a big loser at the hands of Obamacare. Having refused to get on board with the White House and the Senate Finance Committee when the law was being crafted in 2009, the medical device industry was punished with an excise tax of 2.3% of their revenues, regardless of whether they make a profit.

My sympathies to anyone losing their job at Stryker, or elsewhere. Except to those who voted for Obama. All I can say to them is this is what you voted for.

The book’s premise is God spoke to Professor [Barbara A. Thompson, Florida A&M], telling her that Apostle Barack Obama’s 155 speeches made between February 10, 2007 and January 20, 2009 had the answers to unlock the kingdom of “heaven here on earth.”

Yes, Barack had worked tirelessly on behalf of the American people, especially those who elected him in 2008. His followers needed to re-elect him to a second term, so that he could continue to accomplish the promises he made, thus, realizing his vision of America as a more perfect political union or “heaven here on earth” Then, as I began to contemplate ways to assist Barack in his 2012 re-election bid something miraculous happened. I felt God’s (His) Spirit beckoning me in my dreams at night. Listening, cautiously, I learned that Jesus walked the earth to create a more civilized society, Martin (Luther King) walked the earth to create a more justified society, but, Apostle Barack, the name he was called in my dreams, would walk the earth to create a more equalized society, for the middle class and working poor. Apostle Barack, the next young leader with a new cause, had been taken to the mountaintop and allowed to see over the other side. He had the answers to unlock the kingdom of “heaven here on earth” for his followers. The answers were repeated – over and over – in speeches Barack had made from his presidential announcement to his inaugural address. Those speeches or his teachings contained the answers to the middle class and working poor people living in a “heaven here on earth” For when the answers were unlocked and enacted, Apostle Barack’s vision of America would be realized.

I’ll wait here while you go hurl.

Out of all the observations and arguments over the direction of our culture, it’s the tendency of some, mostly on the Left, to eschew self-government in favor of a Leader who somehow embodies the spirit of the nation and can divine the “national will” that perhaps disturbs me most. Ronald Pestritto describes this in his discussion of Hegel’s influence on President Wilson in “Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism:”

“People follow the world-historical individual because they see their own spirit in him. This leader has in him the vision of the people’s future. ‘Their fellows, therefore, follow these soul-leaders; for they feel the irresistible power of their own inner Spirit thus embodied.’ Wilson laid out a similar concept of democratic leadership in his essay ‘Leaders of men,’ … As Hegel explains, leadership is necessary in order to uncover and bring to the surface the people’s true will, which become increasingly manifest as history progresses. Underneath the apparent clash of subjective interests and passions, there is a true, unified, and objective will, Leadership finds this true will and points it out to the people.”

(“Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism,” Kindle edition, beginning at location 276)

Adjust for the religious framing of Professor Thompson’s work and Hegel’s talk of “spirit” and “will,” and I think you can see the family resemblance. This veneration of the leader and the paternalistic “knowing the people’s will before the people themselves know” is part and parcel of American progressivism, not just in Wilson’s time (and, to an extent, his predecessor, TR), but in the present day in his modern acolyte, Obama. Goldberg discusses this tendency extensively in his must-read, “Liberal Fascism,” and it’s an unhealthy one in a democratic republic, something far too many succumb to.

While people like Obama cloak their beliefs in words of democracy, at their heart they’re statist, elitist, and anti-democratic. At the extreme end of their politics lies totalitarianism, wherein, as Professor Thompson anticipates as “heaven on earth,” God and the State become one.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: I think the really shocking news today was that General Petraeus thought and hoped he could keep his job. He thought that it might and it would be kept secret, and that he could stay in his position. I think what that tells us is really important. It meant that he understood that the FBI obviously knew what was going on. He was hoping that those administration officials would not disclose what had happened, and therefore hoping that he would keep his job. And that meant that he understood that his job, his reputation, his legacy, his whole celebrated life was in the hands of the administration, and he expected they would protect him by keeping it quiet.

And that brings us to the ultimate issue, and that is his testimony on September 13. That’s the thing that connects the two scandals, and that’s the only thing that makes the sex scandal relevant. Otherwise it would be an exercise in sensationalism and voyeurism and nothing else. The reason it’s important is here’s a man who knows the administration holds his fate in its hands, and he gives testimony completely at variance with what the Secretary of Defense had said the day before, at variance with what he’d heard from his station chief in Tripoli, and with everything that we had heard. Was he influenced by the fact that he knew his fate was held by people within the administration at that time?

The attack that killed four Americans in the Libyan consulate began as a spontaneous protest against the film “The Innocence of Muslims,” but Islamic militants who may have links to Al Qaeda used the opportunity to launch an attack, CIA Director David Petreaus told the House Intelligence Committee today according to one lawmaker who attended a closed-door briefing.

Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House Intel committee, said Petraeus laid out “a chronological order exactly what we felt happened, how it happened, and where we’re going in the future.”

“In the Benghazi area, in the beginning we feel that it was spontaneous – the protest- because it went on for two or three hours, which is very relevant because if it was something that was planned, then they could have come and attacked right away,” Ruppersberger, D-Md., said following the hour-long briefing by Petraeus. “At this point it looks as if there was a spontaneous situation that occurred and that as a result of that, the extreme groups that were probably connected to al Qaeda took advantage of that situation and then the attack started.”

That was just two days after the attack. How could Petreaus have definitively stated at that time that the “offensive anti-Islam video” was what caused the Benghazi attack in which four Americans were murdered, including a US Ambassador and two Navy SEALs?

And remember, initially the President blamed the video for what happened. Most notably at the United Nations. Yet we know for a fact that within 24 hours high-ranking officials were privately speculating on an Al Qaeda link. We need answers, and soon, before the administration has any more time to further misinform the American public about what they knew – and when.